Patti LuPone Film and television work What film was she in? Among LuPone's film credits are Fighting Back, Witness, Just Looking, The Victim, Summer of Sam, Driving Miss Daisy, did she have a starring role in any film? She played Lady Bird Johnson in the TV movie, LBJ: The Early Years (1987). When year is the movie? 1987 Did she win any awards for movies or tv shows? She has twice been nominated for an Emmy Award: For what role? for the TV movie The Song Spinner (1995, Daytime Emmy Award nominee), and for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series on Frasier in 1998. Who is a co star she had in a film or tv show? Kelsey Grammer.
What show or movie was that  on?
What show or movie was Patti LuPone with a co star?
Among LuPone's film credits are Fighting Back, Witness, Just Looking, The Victim, Summer of Sam, Driving Miss Daisy, King of the Gypsies, 1941, Wise Guys, Nancy Savoca's The 24 Hour Woman and Savoca's Union Square (in post-production, late 2010), Family Prayers, and City by the Sea. She has also worked with playwright David Mamet on The Water Engine, the critically acclaimed State and Main, and Heist. In 2011, the feature film Union Square, co-written and directed by the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Award Winner, Nancy Savoca, was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. In it, LuPone co-starred with Mira Sorvino, Tammy Blanchard, Mike Doyle, Michael Rispoli and Daphne Rubin-Vega.  She played Lady Bird Johnson in the TV movie, LBJ: The Early Years (1987). LuPone played Libby Thatcher on the television drama Life Goes On, which ran on ABC from 1989 to 1993. In the 1990s she had a recurring role as defense attorney Ruth Miller on Law & Order. She has twice been nominated for an Emmy Award: for the TV movie The Song Spinner (1995, Daytime Emmy Award nominee), and for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series on Frasier in 1998. She had a cameo as herself that year on an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Kelsey Grammer.  LuPone's TV work also included a recurring role on her cousin Tom Fontana's HBO series in its final season, Oz (2003). She appeared as herself on a February 2005 episode of Will & Grace. She also appeared on the series Ugly Betty in March 2007 as the mother of Marc St. James (played by Michael Urie). LuPone had a recurring guest role as Frank Rossitano's mother on 30 Rock. LuPone appeared as herself in the season two finale of the television series Glee.  LuPone guest starred on Army Wives on July 8, 2012. She reunited with fellow guest star Kellie Martin as her mother once again. LuPone appeared in the 2013 film Parker, an action-thriller.  In 2013, LuPone was cast in the third season of the FX series American Horror Story as Joan Ramsey, a religious mother with a hidden past, and played herself in the third season of HBO's Girls. In 2015, she appeared in several episodes of the Showtime horror series Penny Dreadful as a cantankerous yet powerful white witch. She returned to the show in 2016 in the role of Dr. Seward, an alienist aiding Eva Green's character. Seward is an adaptation of John Seward from Bram Stoker's Dracula, and claims to be a descendant of Joan Clayton, the character LuPone portrayed in the second season. Also in 2016, she began appearing in Steven Universe as the voice of Yellow Diamond. CANNOTANSWER
Frasier
Patti Ann LuPone (born April 21, 1949) is an American actress and singer best known for her work in stage musicals. She has won two Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards, two Grammy Awards, and was a 2006 inductee to the American Theater Hall of Fame.

LuPone began her professional career with The Acting Company in 1972 and made her Broadway debut in Three Sisters in 1973. She received the first of seven Tony Award nominations for the 1975 musical The Robber Bridegroom. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Eva Perón in the 1979 original Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita. She played Fantine in the original London cast of Les Misérables and Moll in The Cradle Will Rock, winning the 1985 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her work in both. She won a second Tony Award for her role as Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy and a second Olivier Award in 2019, winning Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her role as Joanne in the West End revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company. She has two Grammy Awards for the recording of the 2007 Los Angeles Opera production of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.

Other stage musical performances include her Tony-nominated role as Reno Sweeney in the 1987 Broadway revival of Anything Goes, her Olivier-nominated role as Norma Desmond in the 1993 original production of Sunset Boulevard in London, her Tony-nominated role as Mrs. Lovett in the new 2005 Broadway production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, her Tony-nominated role as Lucia in the 2010 original Broadway production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and her Tony-nominated role as Helena Rubenstein in the 2017 original Broadway production of War Paint. She is currently starring in the Broadway transfer of the successful West End revival of Company alongside Katrina Lenk.

On television, she starred in the drama series Life Goes On (1989–1993) and received Emmy Award nominations for the TV movie The Song Spinner (1995) and her guest role in the sitcom Frasier (1998). She also had appeared in three Ryan Murphy series, American Horror Story: Coven (2013–2014), and Pose (2019) both  on FX, and Hollywood (2020) on Netflix. She guest starred in Penny Dreadful (2014–2016) before returning in a lead role. She voices the character Yellow Diamond in the animated series Steven Universe (2013–2019) and Steven Universe Future (2019–2020). She also appeared on The CW comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as Rabbi Shari (2017). Her film appearances include Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979), Spike Lee's Summer of Sam (1999), Peter Weir's Witness (1985), as well as Driving Miss Daisy (1989), State and Main (2000), and The Comedian (2016).

Early life and training
LuPone was born on April 21, 1949, in Northport, New York, on Long Island, the daughter of Angela Louise (née Patti), a library administrator at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, and Orlando Joseph LuPone, a school administrator and English teacher at Walt Whitman High School in Huntington, Long Island. Her great-great aunt was 19th-century opera singer Adelina Patti. Her older brother Robert LuPone is a Tony-nominated actor, dancer, and director who originated the role of Zach, the director, in A Chorus Line. LuPone is Italian-American and Roman Catholic.

LuPone was part of the first graduating class of Juilliard's Drama Division (1968–1972: Group 1), which also included actors Kevin Kline and David Ogden Stiers. She graduated from Juilliard in 1972 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. LuPone has a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and she is famous for her strong/high "Broadway" belt singing voice. In a 2008 interview, she maintained that she was "an actor who sings", and thankful she "had a voice".

Career

Theatre

1970s: Early career 
In 1972, LuPone became one of the original members of The Acting Company, formed by John Houseman. The Acting Company is a nationally touring repertory theater company. LuPone's stint with the company lasted from 1972 to 1976, and she appeared in many of their productions, such as The Cradle Will Rock, The School for Scandal, Women Beware Women, The Beggar’s Opera, The Time of Your Life, The Lower Depths, The Hostage, Next Time I’ll Sing to You, Measure for Measure, Scapin, Edward II, The Orchestra, Love’s Labours Lost, Arms and the Man, and The Way of the World. She made her Broadway debut in the play The Three Sisters as Irina in 1973.  For her work in The Robber Bridegroom (1975) she received her first Tony Award nomination, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. The Acting Company honored LuPone on March 12, 2012 in an event called "Patti's Turn" at the Kaye Playhouse.

In 1976, producer David Merrick hired LuPone as a replacement to play Genevieve, the title role of the troubled pre-Broadway production of The Baker's Wife. The production toured at length but Merrick deemed it unworthy of Broadway and it closed out of town.

Since 1977, LuPone has been a frequent collaborator with David Mamet, appearing in his plays The Woods, All Men Are Whores, The Blue Hour, The Water Engine (1978), Edmond and The Old Neighborhood (1997). The New York Times reviewer wrote of LuPone in The Old Neighborhood, "Those who know Ms. LuPone only as a musical comedy star will be stunned by the naturalistic fire she delivers here. As Jolly, a part inspired by Mr. Mamet's real-life sister and his realized female character, Ms. LuPone finds conflicting layers of past and present selves in practically every line. She emerges as both loving matriarch and wounded adolescent, sentimental and devastatingly clear-eyed."  In 1978, she appeared in the Broadway musical adaptation of Studs Terkel's Working, which ran for only 24 performances.

In 1979 LuPone starred in the original Broadway production of Evita, the musical based on the life of Eva Perón, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and directed by Harold Prince. Although LuPone was hailed by critics, she has since said that her time in Evita was not an enjoyable one. In a 2007 interview, she stated " 'Evita' was the worst experience of my life," she said. "I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women. And I had no support from the producers, who wanted a star performance onstage but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee."  Despite the trouble, LuPone won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. It was not until she had reprised the role in a production in Sydney when she had finally enjoyed the part and felt comfortable singing the score. LuPone and her co-star, Mandy Patinkin, remained close friends both on and off the stage.

1980s 
In May 1983, founding alumni of The Acting Company reunited for an off-Broadway revival of Marc Blitzstein's landmark labor musical The Cradle Will Rock at the American Place Theater. It was narrated by John Houseman with LuPone in the roles of Moll and Sister Mister. and Kent, Connecticut.

In February 2022, Lupone tested positive for COVID-19.

Acting credits

Theatre 
Sources: Playbill Vault; Internet Broadway Database; Internet Off-Broadway Database

Film
Sources: TCM; AllMovie

Television
Sources: TCM; AllMovie

Discography 
Selected recordings include:
 The Baker’s Wife (Original cast recording)
 Evita (Original Broadway cast recording)
 The Cradle Will Rock (The Acting Company recording)
 Les Misérables (Original London Cast recording)
 Anything Goes (New Broadway Cast Recording)
 Heat Wave (John Mauceri conducting the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra)
 Patti LuPone Live (Solo Album)
 Sunset Boulevard (World Premiere/Original London Cast Recording)
 Matters of the Heart (Solo Album)
 Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic recording)
 Sweeney Todd (2005 Broadway Cast recording)
 The Lady with the Torch (Solo Album)
 The Lady With the Torch...Still Burning (Solo Album)
 To Hell and Back (Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra World Premier recording)
 Gypsy (2008 Broadway Revival Cast Recording)
 Patti LuPone At Les Mouches (Live Solo Recording of 1980 club act)
 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
 Far Away Places (Solo Album)
 Company (New York Philharmonic recording)
 War Paint (Original Broadway cast recording)
 Don't Monkey with Broadway (Solo Album)
 Company (Revival London cast recording)

Her live performance of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" at the Grammy Awards was released on the 1994 album Grammy's Greatest Moments Volume IV.

In 2009 LuPone's 1985 recording of "I Dreamed a Dream" reached #45 on the UK Singles Chart It also reached the Billboard magazine Hot Digital Songs and Hot Singles Recurrents charts in the US.

LuPone recorded a duet with Seth MacFarlane (who was in character as Glenn Quagmire) on the 2005 album Family Guy: Live In Vegas.

A live concert special film, An Evening with Patti LuPone, was filmed in July 2012 and released in November 2012 on SethTv.com with 104 minutes of Patti LuPone songs and stories with host Seth Rudetsky.

A new CD of one of her shows, The Lady with the Torch, was released in 2006 on Sh-K-Boom Records. In December she released bonus tracks for that CD only available on iTunes and the Sh-K-Boom website.

Bibliography
LuPone wrote a memoir recounting her life and career from childhood to the present, which was released in September 2010. It was simply titled Patti LuPone: A Memoir, which was, according to LuPone, the winner of the competition she held to name the book.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

 
 
 Patti LuPone on IOBDB
 
 
 Patti LuPone Interview
 InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: Patti LuPone (TV Interview)
 Patti LuPone – Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org
 University of the Arts Show Music Magazine Database
 Patti LuPone concert special on SethTV.com. Filmed July, 2012.
 Patti LuPone Papers at the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New York, NY

1949 births
Living people
American women singers
American film actresses
American musical theatre actresses
American television actresses
American mezzo-sopranos
American Roman Catholics
Drama Desk Award winners
Grammy Award winners
American people of Italian descent
Juilliard School alumni
People from Northport, New York
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Tony Award winners
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Actresses from New York (state)
People from Edisto Island, South Carolina
The 4:30 Movie was a television program that aired weekday afternoons on WABC-TV (Channel 7) in New York from 1968 to 1981.  The program was mainly known for individual theme weeks devoted to theatrical feature films or made-for-TV movies starring a certain actor or actress, or to a particular genre, or to films that spawned sequels.  The more popular episodes were "Monster Week," "Planet of the Apes Week" and "Vincent Price Week."  Some films, such as Ben-Hur and How the West Was Won, were of such length that an entire week was devoted to running the whole movie.  Other films that ran longer than the program's 90-minute length were often divided into two parts and shown over two days.

Often, The 4:30 Movie would rebroadcast installments of the nationally telecast ABC Movie of the Week.

Variations of The 4:30 Movie were aired on other stations around the United States, most notably those also owned and operated by WABC-TV's parent network, ABC.

History

The 4:30 Movie got its start on January 8, 1968.  In its first year in that time slot, it was broadcast under the title The Big Show.  This earlier title dated back to September 16, 1963, when WABC first aired movies in the late afternoons to compete with WCBS-TV's long-running The Early Show and WNBC-TV's Movie Four.  The movies were shown at 5:00 until December 31, 1965, and at 6:00 from January 3, 1966, to January 5, 1968.  (From the autumn of 1966 to the 1968 time change, it was called The 6 O'Clock Movie, a title which was also used by sister stations KABC-TV in Los Angeles and KGO-TV in San Francisco until 1971.)

In its first twenty months in its soon-to-be titular time slot, The Big Show / 4:30 Movie was two hours, but after the early evening Eyewitness News was expanded from 30 minutes to an hour on September 8, 1969, the movie show's length was set at 90 minutes, which it would remain for the rest of its run.  After the autumn of 1972, the program was preempted once a month on Wednesday in the school months to run an episode of the ABC Afterschool Special.

The announcer and off-camera host for The Big Show, and The 4:30 Movie was Scott Vincent from January 1968 to December 1978.   At Scott Vincent's request, Gilbert Hodges assumed his duties during his illness in 1979.  Following Vincent's death, announcing on promos was divided among Hodges, Fred Foy, Joel Crager and Ernie Anderson.  The copy for The 4:30 Movie'''s openings, bumpers, and promos was written by Jon Kal.

The instrumental used as the theme music to The 4:30 Movie was an original composition, "Big Show Theme," composed by Walter Raim, written and originally recorded in the waning months of WABC's using The Big Show title. The piece was commissioned by ABC in 1968 for use on flagship station WABC-TV and was later applied to the local movie shows of the network's O&Os.
 
The first opening title sequence associated with The 4:30 Movie was a motif of a film crew setting up studio lights and adjusting a movie camera, and ending with a director sitting in a chair and holding a bullhorn before the title zoomed in; this was used from 1969 until circa 1973. The most famous image associated with the show's opening, a silhouetted image of a "rotating cameraman" operating a 35 mm movie camera, was animated by Harry Marks and used on WABC-TV from around 1973 to 1980.  This opening was also applied to the station's other movie shows, and was used for their Saturday Night Movie and Sunday Night Movie as late as 1987, with the theme music still in use up to 1991.  The "rotating cameraman" footage originated from the opening titles for the weekend edition of the ABC Movie of the Week in 1971 .  From 1980 to the end, The 4:30 Movies opening titles were similar to what was used for The ABC Sunday Night Movie and The ABC Friday Night Movie in the late 1970s, except with different theme music ("Skippin' " by Ramsey Lewis, from his 1977 album Tequila Mockingbird).

The 4:30 Movie was cancelled by WABC-TV in November 1981, and was replaced effective November 30 by The People's Court and a 5:00 edition of Eyewitness News.  As with many once-popular movie shows on both the networks and local television stations, the factors most commonly cited in The 4:30 Movies demise ranged from the proliferation of cable television channels such as HBO, Cinemax and Showtime, to the increasing popularity of videocassette recorders.

Equivalents in other cities
Chicago

On WLS-TV, formerly WBKB-TV this show was called The 3:30 Movie, which was a nearly identical show, except for the title.  The station ran movies in that time slot under the title of The Big Show''' as early as 1962, and first assumed The 3:30 Movie title in September 1968. From July 21, 1980, until its final airing on July 26, 1984, it would air a half-hour earlier as The 3:00 Movie. 

Los Angeles

KABC-TV's weekday movie show debuted on August 31, 1964, at 6 PM. For most of its time at that slot, the umbrella was called The 6 O'Clock Movie, remaining there until September 10, 1971. On September 13, 1971, it moved a half-hour later as The Six-Thirty Movie (also known as The 6:30 Movie), lasting at that time slot through March 29, 1974, and after April 1, 1974, it was known as The 3:30 Movie. The program aired for the last time on September 12, 1980; effective September 15, KABC added a 4:00 edition of Eyewitness News, anchored by Jerry Dunphy and Tawny Little.

Detroit

WXYZ-TV's afternoon movie show, like WABC's, was known for years as The 4:30 Movie; it debuted on May 20, 1968, when the 6PM movie and the 4:30PM newscast switched places.In fact, WXYZ-TV was the first to use The 4:30 Movie title, from the very point their movie series moved into that time slot. Beginning September 20, 1976, it had moved ahead a half-hour and was retitled The 4:00 Movie.  The program lasted until October 22, 1982, after which it was replaced by the ultimately short-lived Good Afternoon Detroit. , 

San Francisco

On KGO-TV, the equivalent was The 6 O'Clock Movie up to 1971, and then The Six-Thirty Movie through 1974; thereafter, following a change in time slot, it became The 3:30 Movie.  The program was cancelled in 1986 to make room for Oprah at 3:00 p.m. and Donahue at 4:00 p.m.

In virtually all the above cases, these movie umbrellas originally went by the same title of The Big Show as WABC, with KGO's movie show running as early as 1962. The programs changed to the later titles around the same time as the New York station.

From 1982 to 1983, WOR-TV in New York ran a late afternoon movie program called The 4:30 Movie, but it bore no relation to WABC's movie umbrella.  This was also the case for sister station KHJ's The 3:30 Movie in the Los Angeles market.

==List of The 4:30 Movies theme weeks==

Actors and actresses

 Vincent Price Week
 Elvis Presley Week (sometimes The Beatles and Elvis Presley Week, including A Hard Day's Night and Help! surrounded and separated by three Elvis films)
 John Wayne Week
 Raquel Welch Week
 Ann-Margret Week
 Martin & Lewis Week
 Dean Martin Week
 Jerry Lewis Week
 Bob Hope Week
 Marilyn Monroe Week
 Sidney Poitier Week
 Anthony Quinn Week
 Susan Hayward Week
 Troy Donahue Week
 Frank Sinatra Week
 Burt Lancaster Week
 James Stewart Week
 Tony Curtis Week
 Steve McQueen Week (including The Great Escape shown over three days, with a half hour from the end of part one and the beginning of part three included in the second part) 
 Doris Day Week
 Tony Randall Week
 Paul Newman Week
 Bing Crosby Week
 Cary Grant Week
 Fonda Week, with Henry and Jane Fonda
 Natalie Wood Week
 Charlton Heston Week
 Burt Reynolds Week
 Jack Lemmon Week
 Robert Mitchum Week
 Elizabeth Taylor Week
 Richard Burton Week
 William Holden Week

Continuing movie series

 Gidget Week
 Lassie Week
 Matt Helm Week
 Our Man Flint Week
 Planet of the Apes Week with the first film in the series divided over two days, with about a half hour shown at the end of part one repeated at the start of part two

Movie genres

 Monster Week
 Beach Party Week
 Fantasy Week
 Western Week
 Epic Week
 Adventure Week
 Laugh-a-Thon Week
 Sci-Fi Week
 Strange Worlds Week
 Secret Agent Week
 Swinger Week
 Supernatural Week
 A Fistful of Heroes Week
 International Women's Week
 Suspense Week
 Bad Girls Week
 Presidential Week
 Romance Week
 Caper Week
 War Week
 Love and Marriage Week
 Edgar Allan Poe Week

Individual movies airing the whole week

 Ben-Hur Week
 How the West Was Won Week
 QB VII Week
 Bridge on the River Kwai Week

On occasion, The 4:30 Movie repeated some miniseries that originally aired nationally on ABC a few years before, most notably Roots, as well as Rich Man, Poor Man and its sequel.  The length of each of these films was such that two whole weeks were dedicated to running the entire movie, rather than just one week.

References

External links
DVD Drive-In's The 4:30 Movie page
The 4:30 Movie fan site in the Wayback Machine
 UHF Nocturne page for KGO's 3:30 Movie
 EpGuides.com list of movies shown on WLS's 3:30 Movie (1968–1980)
 EpGuides.com list of movies shown on WLS's 3:00 Movie (1980–1984)

1968 American television series debuts
1981 American television series endings
1960s American television series
1970s American television series
1980s American television series
Culture of New York City
Local motion picture television series
Franchised television formats Movie 4 (also known as Movie Four) was a television program that aired at various times, but predominantly weekday afternoons, on various television stations on channel 4, including WNBC-TV in New York City from 1956 to 1974.  WNBC's program aired top-rank first-run movies and other future classics from Hollywood, as well as foreign films.  As with other movie shows of 90-minute length, films that ran longer were often divided into two parts.

Though it achieved a degree of success, for most of its run the WNBC show usually ran in the shadow of rival WCBS-TV's The Early Show on weekdays and The Late Show on weekends.  Despite its being a major player among the local movie shows for nearly 18 years, the program today is largely forgotten in relation to WABC-TV's better-known The 4:30 Movie.

The Movie 4 title was also used at varying times until the 1970s by NBC's two other owned-and-operated stations on channel 4, WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. and (to a considerably lesser degree) KNBC in Los Angeles.  The network's Chicago outlet, WMAQ-TV, used the title Movie 5 for its movie shows from the late 1950s up to the 1980s; and during NBC's ownership of Philadelphia station WRCV-TV (now KYW-TV), their movie umbrella was known as Movie 3.

Early history
What became Movie 4 debuted on what was then WRCA-TV on June 4, 1956.  In its first eight months on the air, the program was known as Evening Theatre, and was hosted by staff announcer Johnny Andrews.  Prior to its debut, WRCA-TV had been the least committed to airing old movies among the New York television stations.  The show was started in large part as the station's attempt to compete with WCBS-TV's aforementioned movie shows and WOR-TV's Million Dollar Movie, as well as capitalizing on the recent release of major pre- and post-1948 films from the top Hollywood studios for television.  Only a month into the show's run, and to show that the station was in the game for keeps, WRCA-TV appointed whom they called a "film director" to oversee the purchase of first-run feature films, and to advise NBC's O&O's and affiliates.  The program's title switched to Movie 4 on or about February 3, 1957.

Peak years
The heyday for Movie 4 was in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  During this period, many films that became classics had their New York television premieres.  Among these films were The Bells of St. Mary's, High Noon, The Quiet Man, The Men, and East of Eden.  For the most part, top-line features were usually reserved for the Saturday and Sunday night airings, while more standard fare was run on weekdays and weekend afternoons.

Prestigious foreign films—mainly from England but also from other countries—also had their first showings on Movie 4 over the years.  For example, in the autumn of 1960, New York viewers saw the 1955 Peter Sellers–Alec Guinness version of The Ladykillers for the first time on television, as well as Fernandel's The Sheep Has Five Legs, the 1954 Rossano Brazzi film Flesh and Desire, the 1957 French release Les Louves (Demoniac), the 1955 Spanish movie The Miracle of Marcelino, and the 1950 Italian film Prima comunione (Father's Dilemma).

In the program's last years, several films became recurring staples of Movie 4s schedule, including North by Northwest, Home from the Hill, Soldier in the Rain, Captain Newman, M.D., Father Goose, The Time Machine, The Babe Ruth Story, and the respective pilots for Columbo (both Prescription: Murder and Ransom for a Dead Man) and Ironside.  Some of Elvis Presley's films also saw play on Movie 4, among them Flaming Star, Kissin' Cousins and It Happened at the World's Fair.  The show was also among the first times New Yorkers saw the Doctor Who character, via the theatrical releases Dr. Who and the Daleks and Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. with Peter Cushing as the title character.  The station also had its share of Japanese monster movies, including Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, but such titles were minuscule compared with the number of such films that ran on rival WABC-TV's The 4:30 Movie.

Other films shown on Movie 4 were Visit to a Small Planet, Crawlspace (1972), Lover Come Back (1961), Ten Little Indians (1965), and I'd Rather Be Rich, and such MGM musicals as Annie Get Your Gun, The Band Wagon, Singin' in the Rain, High Society, Kiss Me Kate, and Les Girls.

Time slots
When Evening Theatre began in 1956, it ran Mondays through Fridays from 5:30 to 6:45 pm  On January 20, 1957, a few weeks prior to its title change to Movie 4, a Sunday night airing commencing at 10:30 pm was added, as well as a screening on Saturday at 5 pm  After another scheduling change, a Saturday night edition starting at 11:15 pm went on the air on April 20, 1957.  On June 30, 1958, the weekday airings were rescheduled to the 5:00 to 6:30 pm time slot, which largely held, with notable exceptions, through 1965.  (In the 1961–62 season, a five-minute program fronted by Kukla and Ollie pushed Movie 4'''s starting time to 5:05 pm)  By 1961, the weekend movies began on both nights at 11:15 pm  (There were also early afternoon weekend films run by WNBC throughout this period, usually under the banner of Movie 4 Matinee.)  In 1963, WNBC-TV began offering a late-night weeknight movie program that would come to be called The Great Great Show (a play on the title of WCBS-TV's overnight movie series The Late Late Show, with a logo reminiscent of the TV series The Wild Wild West).

As the years went on, the frequency of Movie 4s airings began to be gradually reduced.  In October 1960, the late Saturday afternoon editions were discontinued (they would appear on and off on the weekend afternoon schedule in later years, but such airings were never considered part of the series proper).  The program's Sunday night airings ended on September 23, 1962, and was replaced the next week by reruns of Desilu Playhouse.  From December 1962 to April 1963, the weekday airings were temporarily cancelled by WNBC due to the 1962 New York City newspaper strike, while special newscasts ran in their place; the strike ultimately led to the creation of a 30-minute newscast, The Pressman–Ryan Report, anchored by Gabe Pressman and Bill Ryan.The extra length may have also been the prototype for their eventual two-hour NewsCenter4.  The Saturday night airings of Movie 4 came to an end on January 2, 1965; the following week, weekend reruns of The Tonight Show took their place.TV Guide, New York-Metropolitan Edition, January 9–15, 1965.  Thereafter, Movie 4 generally aired weekdays only.  After WNBC-TV's early-evening local newscast was expanded from 30 minutes to an hour on May 10, 1965, Movie 4 moved to its final time slot of 4:30 to 6 pm, where it remained for the rest of its run.

Opening and closing themesMovie 4 went through several different opening and closing title segments over the years.  One such set, made in 1964 and used to about 1966, has shown up online.  They were produced by an animation studio that had done bumpers for WNBC-TV at the time.  The opening theme, "Silhouette of a Dream," was composed by Stan Zabka, a former associate director of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and the closing theme was an easy listening version of "Petite Fleur (Little Flower)."

Later years
Up to the beginning of 1968, Movie 4 had largely played second fiddle to WCBS's The Early Show.  However, in the space of two months in early 1968, came the premiere of what became known as The 4:30 Movie on WABC-TV in January, followed by the cancellation of weekday airings of The Early Show on WCBS-TV and its replacement with The Mike Douglas Show in March.  While the series had some up-and-down moments afterwards, these moves eventually consigned Movie 4 to also-ran status, and the show's ratings began to decline.  To make matters worse, WNBC-TV's own ratings plunged to last place among the city's network O&O's in the early 1970s, dragging Movie 4 down with it.  This was despite a series of promotional advertisements for Movie 4 published in TV Guide and the Daily News with illustrations by Robert Grossman, and later caricatures of individual films' stars by Al Hirschfeld, as run during 1972.  In addition, in the show's final years WNBC's inventory of films was becoming alarmingly low, due to their loss of rights to movies that wound up on WCBS-TV, WNEW-TV, WOR-TV and, ironically enough, WABC-TV.

The cancellation of Movie 4 was announced by WNBC-TV on December 12, 1973, as part of its plans for an expanded two-hour newscast that would debut on April 29, 1974 as NewsCenter4.  The last Movie 4, a repeat of The Time Machine, was aired on April 26, 1974.  The resulting half-hour void left by the cancellation of Movie 4 was filled by reruns of Room 222, whose run on ABC had ended only a few months earlier.  Movie 4's demise left WABC-TV as the only network O&O to have an afternoon movie show (The 4:30 Movie, which ran until 1981).  The end also preceded by nearly two years the introduction of home videocassette recorders, and by several more years the beginning of the growth of cable television.

Postscript and aftermath
The end of Movie 4 in 1974 effectively brought to a close WNBC-TV's run as a movie showcase.  While the station initially retained some of the films that were aired during Movie 4's final years, most of the packages in their library subsequently went to other New York stations, such as 1960s films from Universal Studios that wound up on rival WPIX, which aired several of the titles (including Father Goose and the Columbo and Ironside pilots) as part of its own The Eight O'Clock Movie that ran from December 1974 until the premiere of The WB Television Network in 1995.

As the years went on, the quality of films shown on WNBC-TV became increasingly inferior, with some coming almost exclusively from the public domain.  From 1977 or so, the station began using the all-purpose umbrella title Cinema 4 to replace various individual titles that had been in use since the mid-1960s.  Cinema 4'' ran with decreasing frequency, in its last years confined to occasional weekend airings and overnight weekend showings, until the late 1980s.

List of theme weeks on Movie 4

Actors
Frank Sinatra Week
Elvis Week
Rock Hudson Week

Individual genres
Women's Lib Week
Male Animal Week
Murder Mystery Week
Love and Marriage Week
Hollywood Lives Week
Romance Week
Flying Week

Miscellaneous weeks and months
Abbondanza Month
Foreign Film Week
Academy Award Month
March of Hits Month
Color Week
MGM Musicals Week

References and footnotes

External links
 Video clips of 1964 opening and closing titles of Movie 4 (YouTube.com)

1956 American television series debuts
Culture of New York City
1974 American television series endings
1950s American television series
1960s American television series
1970s American television series
Local motion picture television series